On cross-currency transmissions between US dollar and euro LIBOR-OIS spreads

Using the causality-in-variance and causality-in-mean tests advocated by Hong (2001), we examine volatility and mean transmissions between the US dollar (USD) and euro (EUR) LIBOR-OIS spreads from January 2005 to June 2011. Interestingly, during the global financial crisis period, despite the apparently bidirectional causality-in-mean observed between the two spreads, we find evidence of significant unidirectional causality-in-variance from the EUR to the USD spread, implying information flows driven by the funding behaviors of European financial institutions. On the other hand, during the recent European sovereign debt crisis, we detect no significant causality-in-mean and causality-in-variance between the spreads.

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